writer ’ s problem ” – Ernest Hemingway
“ A confessed – “ is always how to write truly .” In his best novel , A Farewell to Arms , published in America in 1929 and in Italy only in 1945 , the great writer faithfully described darts of clear light , flashes , and electric lights that made places recognizable at night . He evoked Milan and its canal , the Naviglio Interno , giving light other meanings , coherently with the iceberg theory , in which each word hides several different meanings . A Farewell to Arms is a romance-novel set in Italy during World War I ( 1915-1918 ). Hemingway chose Italy because he considered our country to be the most suited “ since the olden days ” for almost all the scenes in his book : “ The plain was rich with crops ; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare . There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery . In the dark it was like summer lightning …” In the novel , love between the protagonists starts with a kiss and a slap . “ I leaned forward in the dark to kiss her ,” Harry , the American protagonist , recalls , “ and there was a sharp stinging flash .” “ Her hand ”, Catherine , the English protagonist ’ s hand , “ had hit my ( nose and eyes ).” Flashes of the slap and flashes of the grenades , “ They were seventy-sevens and came with a whishing rush of air ,” Hemingway describes , “ a hard bright burst and flash and then grey smoke .” Love between a lieutenant , a voluntary assistant in the ambulance corps , who is wounded in a bombardment , “ there was a flash , as when a blast-furnace door is swung open .” But since he is in love , Henry dreams . He dreams he is in Milan , with his nurse Catherine : “ I would like to eat at the Cova and then walk down the Via Manzoni in the hot evening and cross over and turn off along the canal and go to the hotel with Catherine Barkley .” Hemingway was attracted by Milan . As soon as his protagonist was able to leave the hospital on crutches , he fulfilled his dream , and Henry and Catherine went to dinner at Biffi ’ s or the Gran Italia and sat at the tables outside on the floor of the illuminated Galleria before Henry , who had healed , returned to the front and participated in the retreat in the Battle of Caporetto , which is magnificently described by Hemingway : “ The sun came out once before it went down … There were many Austrian guns in the woods ... I watched the sudden round puffs of shrapnel smoke … You saw the flash , then heard the crack , then saw the smoke ball distort and thin in the wind ... They fought in the dark in the rain … In the night word came that we were to prepare to retreat … I saw the road of the retreat stretched out far ahead , everything stationary except for the infantry filtering through .” Hemingway ’ s literary ability leads Henry , a deserter against his will , during the retreat , avoiding being shot , up to the Grand Hotel Des Iles Borromées in Stresa , in a room looking out on the lake . A short stop , and then Henry rows tediously in the dark to reach the peaceful and not so distant Switzerland by boat , together with Catherine . As they travel across the lake at night , Hemingway identifies the places that can be recognized thanks to the electric lights : “ When we finally saw some lights much further up the lake and close to the shore it was Intra … The lake widened and across it on the shore at the foot of the mountains on the other side we saw a few lights that should be Luino .” “ It was clear daylight now ... I was sure we were in Switzerland now .” Safe at last , Henry and Catherine get on board an electric train with all its lights on , and “ looked back at the inn with light coming from the windows .” An allegoric light of their short happiness . In the finale , Hemingway ’ s words touch the reader ’ s heart . Henry ’ s desolation for Catherine ’ s death after delivery takes place softly , in an incomparable manner . The novel ends in the hospital room where she lies lifeless : “ shut the door and turned off the light … It was like saying good-by to a statue . After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain .” Bare , intensely dramatic words with which Hemingway ends his novel , giving light a vital meaning to convey Henry ’ s solitude and desperation to the reader .
4 – to be continued . For “ Epiphanies of light ”, to date , the following short stories by Empio Malara have been published in LUCE : “ Alessandro Manzoni , a creator of light ” ( n . 317 , September 2016 ); “ Herman Melville . Light that invites us on a journey ” ( n . 321 , September 2017 ); “ Light and dark in the portrait of James Joyce as a young man ” ( n . 322 , December 2017 ).
Addio alle armi , edizione italiana del giugno 1946 , con 8 illustrazioni di Renato Guttuso / The June 1946 Italian edition of A Farewell to Arms , with 8 illustrations by Renato Guttuso (© Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori )
Flashes and lights in Hemingway ’ s “ A Farewell to Arms ”
Remembering Milan in 1918 , one hundred years ago
EPIPHANIES OF LIGHT / LUCE 323 27